Cambridge admissions tutor: no crisis in A-levels

Dr Andrew Bell from Gonville and Caius College says he is "happy with the
situation" regarding the current A-level system.

10:00PM GMT 22 Jan 2013

As part of an overhaul of A-levels being unveiled by the Government, teenagers will be tested at the end of two years – with no exams in the first 12 months – to stop courses being broken down into bite-sized chunks that encourage a “formulaic approach” to education.

AS-levels, which are currently taken in the first year of the sixth-form, will become standalone qualifications, with marks no longer counting towards final A-level grades.

Ministers hope it will allow many students in England to take three full A-levels and supplement them with at least one shorter AS qualification in a separate subject.

But according to Dr Andrew Bell, Admissions Tutor at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the current A-level system "supplies Cambridge and other selective universities with large numbers of suitably well qualified and well prepared applicants."

Dr Bell, who is also the Director of Studies in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, says his college is content with A-levels as they stand.

"Of course there's a range, of course it could well be that we'll see changes in the coming times, but at the moment I don't think we see that there's any crisis at all, we're happy with the situation."